May 4, 2012

spacecricket asked: O_O I just now realized you deactivated your facebook! I know you discussed doing it a bit before, but can you talk about it some more, and about how it's making you feel?

Ian once reblogged this quote:

“Facebook is great for finding, joining and keeping in touch with your granfalloons. Tumblr on the other hand may help you find your karass.”

That’s at least how I feel about it. On Facebook, my family tended to be a bit too judgmental, and I was tired of running from them, so I shut the whole shebag down. At least on Tumblr and Twitter, and then in emails with close friends, I can be *myself* (sheesh, this is starting to sound like an 80s soap opera) without all the judgement. I can reblog all the M*A*S*H gifs I want to, without worrying that someone is going to start a family feud the next time I come home because I’m all liberaled up. (I really, really, REALLY do love my family. It’s just that I love the past versions of themselves, back when everything was all hunky-dory and I was just a non-politicized kid. The time’s they are a’changin’.)

Also, haven’t you ever wanted to just disconnect from it all? To see if you could survive, on your own, not speaking to anyone or anything, just thinking your own solitary thoughts, without the need to broadcast them to the world?

It’s one of my goals in life to live on a farm or a cabin in the woods with only books, newspapers, and animals for company. People can too easily get on my nerves, tire me out. Too much noise, too much trash, too little obvious respect for one another … it’s nice to get away and have some time for just me.

It’s pretty cool when people freak out to find that I can disengage myself so easily from the outside world. Tomorrow morning I am going back to a home with no internet, no cell phones (Mom and I still refuse to own one), and no television. The fastest way to get news is by listening to the radio, which is forever set on AM 920 WBAA. I just like the feeling of being unreachable, on my own, and if I don’t want to talk to someone, then I don’t have to act like I’m interested, and lead them on to believe that I am somehow interested in them. I can just avoid the whole conflict and ignore them completely until I can put on my happy face and dedicate my time to them. I find it a bit rude when in the middle of a conversation, someone will randomly stop listening to me so they can glance down at their phone and giggle at a text that must be more important than me. Or something like that. I’m not really ferociously grumpy about it, but more peeved at how attached everyone is to technology, and is okay with supporting such a grossly massive company like Facebook (today the NYTimes reported that Facebook could soon be valued at $86 billion - yuck). 

Facebook was killing that glorious freedom I work for, and so I randomly said bye-bye one February day, and I don’t ever want to look back.

The people who put up with me through all of this are really some pretty fantastic people. They are my closest friends. And the people who I don’t know and just happen to follow me on here or anyplace else on the internet, they are mighty close to my karass.

And if you stuck through the entirety of that grammatical mess, then you are most certainly on your way to joining my karass.

February 17, 2012
Facebook

A few days ago I randomly decided to deactivate my Facebook account. I didn’t warn anyone, didn’t even really think about it, but just did it. Facebook doesn’t offend me, I really have enough time in my schedule to handle an account, and I love my friends on there. 
It just seems kind of … well … stupid to me, right now anyways. For example, if I post something and don’t get enough likes or a comment, then I feel like an idiot. An idiot for posting something that other people don’t like or understand, and an idiot for even giving a potato peel’s worth of thought to the fact that people might not like me. Not to be egotistical, but of course they like me. Why should I base my self worth on the amount of attention I get on a web site? 
I’m not the type of person to get sucked into something like that, but yet Facebook did it to me. I love talking with my friends from the comfort of my own home, and I love staying connected with my great friends from high school. I mean, that’s why I joined in the first place. My friends are smart, intellectual people, and Facebook is a fantastic place to have long discussions on news events, politics, society or whatever.

Facebook has lost it’s glamour.  Perhaps it will come back in time. I don’t know. This could be just one more way my mind is fighting against my generation, since I am a sophomore in college and I still refuse to own a cell phone, have never owned a car, and have no internet nor a T.V. at my home. I don’t like to be tied to technology and communicating with people all the time. I like my freedom to stay at home and mind my own business. 
Unfortunately, if I am to live in this world, I am going to have to live by its rules. I can fight it, I can hate it, I can avoid it, I can sneer at it, but someday I am going to have to accept it.
Do I want a job? Do I want friends? Do I want to be involved in my community? Do I want to stay in touch with people I respect and admire? Do I want to read new books, listen to new music, watch new sci-fi shows, join new fandoms?
Ultimately, I guess, the answer is yes.
And that is why my Facebook will make a come-back.
Just not yet. 

6:29pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZYgFByGaL58a
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